


Through A Glass Darkly

by pipisafoat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Multiple Universes Colliding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 12:57:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It's not unheard of, Colonel. SG-1 has met alternate versions of itself before."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"I just can't decide if it would be totally awesome or completely creepy. I mean, someone else who knows literally everything about you?"</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"Don't be so selfish, Sheppard. Think how much the world of science could advance with two of me working on something together."</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>"You're sure your inability to work with others doesn't extend to other selves?"</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through A Glass Darkly

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Through A Glass Darkly](https://archiveofourown.org/works/847631) by [trillingstar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trillingstar/pseuds/trillingstar). 



> For more detail about content/warnings, see note at bottom.
> 
> Written for the 2013 SGA ReverseBang, for trillingstar's fabulous art. Trillingstar also supplied a lot of brainstorming, ego-boosting, hand-holding, and general chat throughout the writing of this fic; it would not have been completed with trillingstar! Special thanks to my last-minute betas, firesign10 and silverflight8!

John stops when Ronon does, because Ronon stopping in the middle of run tends to mean either there are Wraith to shoot or someone has food, and honestly, he could go for either of those options right now. Unfortunately, the only smell around is their own sweat, and he can't see any Wraith. He hopes for about half a second that there are some hiding somewhere, but Teyla's the one with the spidey-sense, and Ronon's draped over a conveniently placed railing, breathing like McKay after a twenty-meter dash to the gate.

"I thought you said you were a Runner!"

Ronon glares over his shoulder. "That's funny."

"I can usually barely keep up. What's with you?" He'd feel like a jerk if Ronon twisted his ankle or was sick and still ran with him, but the man looks fine, if tired.

"What's with _you_?"

John hands him a bottle instead of showing his confusion. "Water?" Ronon chugs it like they've been in a desert for a week, glaring the whole time. "Alright, sore loser. I don't act like a jerk when you beat me!"

"Yes, you do."

He has to concede the point, but he doesn't have to do it out loud. Ronon looks recovered after the water, anyway, so he offers him a chance to redeem himself. "Okay, then we'll go around again."

The bottle is placed unceremoniously back in his hand as Ronon walks away without looking back, though he does reply, "You go ahead."

John considers the bottle for a short moment before deciding he's fine and dropping his arm back to his side. "Okay, grumpy. I will." He takes off up the catwalk, making a mental note to be sure Beckett checks out his teammate before they go offworld again.

Running feels good today, more like his college days than recent races with Ronon. He knows he's in shape, and not just in a _for your age_  way, but today ... if he could run like this every day, he'd be ready for a full marathon. Not that there are marathons in Pegasus - though maybe there are; he'd have to ask Teyla. He files that in with getting Ronon to Beckett and turns his brain back off, settling into the rhythm of shoes on catwalk. There's a quiet clang with every step, and he can sink into the beat of it better than any other surface. Before he knows it, he's hit that elusive runner's high where nothing matters, nothing hurts, and there's no finish line. It's about then that the clangs take on a slightly different tone.

He glances down, still hazy on endorphins. The city is full. Full to the point that he looks back up just in time to dodge a group of Athosians on the catwalk. He crashes into the railing and stops, stares down at the throng apparently trading goods in the room below. This is wrong. This is so, so wrong. He shakes his head hard once, and they disappear. The city is empty again, the Athosians on the catwalk are gone, and when he kicks the catwalk below him, its clang echoes reassuringly.

Right. Maybe that's too much running for one day. He walks to the nearest stairs and goes in search of food. He's even hungrier than after a usual run, but that's the one thing that makes sense so far.

* * *

He's on a hive ship, staring at a monitor in front of him. He cocks his head to the side and tries to focus around the noise in his own head to find out if it's showing what he thinks it's showing, but noise in the corridor distracts him. Like a lot of dreams, his body seems to be responding to someone else, and he turns slowly with a grin instead of spinning around and pulling out a weapon.

"Finally decide I've earned a snack?"

Two Wraith guards toss a human in front of him, and the man looks up. "John ... please ... this isn't you...." McKay pleads, but his eyes look empty. John feels his grin spread.

"You're right. This isn't John Sheppard. This is better," he hears himself answer, and his hand slams into McKay's chest. He's horrified to see the greenish knobby knuckles, but the feeling of it attaching is even worse. His claws dig in, latch tightly to McKay's skin, and the feeding slit in his palm attaches. Something leaves his hand and goes into McKay, and the man goes still in front of him. He can taste the fear, he can taste the shame and disgust and regret, and he can taste the breathtaking lifeforce funneling from McKay into his own body.

He stops when McKay looks about 80 and detaches his hand. John nods at the guards to take his prisoner, his meal, back to the holding cell or cocoon or wherever they're keeping him and turns back to the monitor. "My Queen, I believe Atlantis is capable of pulling us to Earth much more quickly, and that would also keep the humans from giving warning."

"As would a bomb," comes the reply, and John shudders, though his dream body remains calm.

"Your choice." The body shrugs and manipulates the controls. "I just want to eat." He wakes up breathing hard and runs into his bathroom just in time to throw up. 

It's early afternoon by the time he wanders out of his quarters, still haunted by the dream, but at least he's stopped checking his palms for feeding slits. He has a vague thought of bugging McKay in his lab, but the dream feels too close to even see the man, even if he did radio early this morning just to make sure nobody had eaten him in the night. Maybe he can get Ronon to run with him, or maybe he could just run alone–

"Colonel Sheppard?"

His eyes snap up and he reaches for his sidearm before realizing it's just Teyla. "Sorry."

"You seem uneasy."

John's a little bit in awe of her ability to state the obvious without sounding like a condescending idiot. "Bad dreams."

She nods slowly, sizing him up. "Would you like to join me in some training with the Bantos rods?"

He's about to decline when a faraway noise makes him flinch. "Ah, yeah. That'd be good." Anything to work off the nervous energy that seems to be today's special. He's sure to come away with bruises, but at least he'll be calmer.

The fighting feels really, really good. His sense are still on high alert after eating McKay - after _dreaming about_ eating McKay - and he's able to anticipate her strikes better and even make some offensive moves himself for once. He sees a small smile on Teyla's face as he tries (and fails) to execute one of her more effective moves and shakes his head at himself as he gets up off the floor. Still, he was in a position to try an attack, and that's better than anything he's managed before, so he can't help but count it as a win in his head. Teyla raises her sticks and her eyebrows, and he mirrors her pose before blocking a sudden strike. He stays with the few simple attacks she's actually taught him instead of overreaching, and while he can tell she's letting him practice them instead of retaliating, he's pretty sure he's giving her at least a decent challenge on her defense.

"Not bad, huh?" he asks when they pause, and she looks calmly but closely at him.

"Yes. Yes, you're doing very well."

He takes that as an invitation to stay on the offensive, to try harder, and he feels himself falling into a sort of trance state. It's kind of like yesterday's runner's high, except the disconnect is bigger, and it makes less sense. He should be getting hit by Teyla's rods as his concentration lapses, but he's not. If anything, he's doing better. He's faster, stronger, more alert ... and, he suddenly realizes, not actually sparring on autopilot. His mouth is speaking, his body is tossing a rod aside, and he's attacking Teyla with one hand literally behind his back. He's using moves he's only ever seen once, when Teyla and one of the other Athosians put on a demonstration of advanced Bantos fighting. It was the demonstration that originally convinced him to start learning, so he _knows_ he doesn't remember them clearly enough to be doing them himself, this effortlessly--

"You are showing a considerable leap in ability, Colonel Sheppard."

He tries to let go of his stick, to let her off the wall, even to let out a nervous laugh, but his body is as far from responding to him as it was in his dream. "You can call me John when we're off the clock," it says before consulting with him.

"Very well, John," Teyla replies, and his body throws another suggestive comment out there, leering at her. "Should we continue, or do you--"

It takes him a second to catch up to his own body, but when he does, the horror he throws at it combines with Teyla's shove to send whatever was controlling him back where it came from, and he steps back just to prove to himself that he can. His legs are his, his body is his, and his voice.... "I'm not really sure what just happened." His voice is his, and with it, his complete inability to articulate anything useful. He finds himself admiring the controlling force for its expressiveness, but the horror at not being able to control his own actions floods back almost immediately, and he shudders. "That was ... interesting." Not the word for it at all. Terrifying, disempowering. The most helpless moment of his entire life--

"Colonel Sheppard, please report to the infirmary!" John jerks in surprise at the voice over the radio, then looks up to Teyla. Her face shows all the relief he felt when they vanquished the interloper in his brain, and he suddenly realizes that it would have raped her if they hadn't kicked it out when they did. Shit.

"You okay?"

Her usual smile is strained, eyes tight, and she very obviously doesn't answer the question. "Doctor Beckett will be expecting you."

"Yeah." He looks at her for a moment longer, but the smile is sliding away quickly, melting into unease and maybe even a hint of fear. She doesn't know it wasn't him controlling his body, and while he doesn't want her thinking he would ... do that ... he doesn't really want to explain that he wasn't in control, either. And Beckett probably is waiting, so....

He silently vows to explain it to her later, when he has it figured out himself. He doesn't want her afraid of him; he wants her on his team, on his six, trusting him, and that includes trusting that he's the only one inside his head.

* * *

He realizes some time after dinner that six hours was a really inconvenient time to pick. He's got two hours left before his first check-in with Beckett, but this is about the time he strips to his boxers and reads a couple pages in _War and Peace_ before bed.

He sets the alarm on his watch just in case, though he plans to leave on his pants and boots to help him stay awake despite Tolstoy's best efforts. He's pulling off his jacket even as he walks into his quarters, dropping it on the bed beside him as he sits. He reaches for the back of his shirt to pull it off as well, but he freezes as he catches sight of the skin where Ellia'd gotten him.

"I don't know how to stop it." He looks up to find Beckett and McKay both looking down at him sadly while Weir looked away, pretty clearly fighting back emotion. "If we don't come up with something soon, you'll be a full Wraith by midday tomorrow."

John feels himself jerk his arms out of the bindings holding him to the infirmary bed. "Then kill me! I can already break these if I want to, and I'm only going to get stronger."

"Give us time," McKay answered, almost pleading. "He'll come up with something."

The dreaminess of the scene is fading, but he's still there. "I'm going to eat you, McKay," he says urgently. "I saw that - once I'm a Wraith, I won't care; I'll eat you."

"You won't eat me, John." McKay looks less afraid than he should be after an announcement like that, but the dreaminess is already coming back in.

"Never," he feels himself reply, and suddenly he's back in his own body, in his room, with a left hand that definitely isn't where he remembers leaving it. It's resting on the scaly spot of skin, and he reaches up for his radio. "Hey, Doc? This is Sheppard."

"Yes, Colonel?"

_I dreamed I'm turning into a Wraith and you can't stop it and McKay probably isn't the only person I'll try to eat._ "We may have to bump up our first check-in."

He's reluctant to tell anyone about seeing other universes or alternate realities or whatever they should be called - and he's really not about to ask McKay what they should be called, because that sort of involves telling him. So he just shows the patch on his arm to Beckett and waits for the medical scanner to do its work. If all else fails, he's willing to admit to the healing now, and the being stronger, and there's really nothing to stop Teyla from telling everyone about what happened in the practice room. (He's pretty sure she won't, but still, it's a possibility.) He's got a story ready to go about smelling hormones or the creature inside him wanting to mate with her, just in case.

And oh, he can add superhearing to that list, too, because he's pretty sure Beckett is still over by his desk, and yet: "It's beginning to alter his DNA. If this is allowed to continue, he'll devolve into a creature similar to what Ellia became."

Which was definitely not a Wraith, so either his imagination was running away with him earlier or alternate-Beckett had come up with a better retrovirus that just ... made Ellia a little bit crazy, maybe, but still a real Wraith.

"How long do we have?"

"I'm not sure exactly."

How extremely helpful, Beckett. "Ballpark! Months, weeks?"

"Days. We have days." Days until he's dead, or days until he needs to be dead to avoid everyone _else_ being dead? He can only hope the retrovirus kills him first. And by him, he means his body, not his mind, even though it looks like that's going to go first.

"Okay, what's the plan?" Bless Elizabeth Weir and her annoying need to always have a plan. He'll never complain about it again. Maybe.

"I've injected him with a viral inhibitor. It should slow down the retrovirus as far as his cognitive abilities are concerned, but I'm afraid that's it so far." He's not really sure he'd been losing his ability to think, but he's at least staying in his own reality, so far, so he'll count it as a win. "We're exploring various treatments that may or may not be effective, so--"

"No, Carson, we don't have any time to explore. Come on, there's _got_ to be something in the Ancient database that can help you find a treatment!"

"Colonel Sheppard?" He jumps at the voice so close to him. "Sorry. The scanner's done. Just lie still and I'll move it back."

"Sure," he answers, staring up at the ceiling to help him focus back on Beckett's conversation. "I'll just wait for the doc."

"You should talk to him. He's hiding it well, but if I was him, I'd be scared to death."

And he is _so_ not up for a talk about his feelings, so it's time to cut that line of thinking right there. He sits upright and turns to face them, putting on a blank face like he has no idea what they've been talking about. "How am I doing?" he asks, and the looks they exchange are kind of fun to see. Weir comes over to him eventually, and he hides a smile at the look of utter relief on Beckett's face. He remembers the Teyla thing and looks Weir up and down, weirdly hoping for some hint of hormones or even the slightest thought of mating, but there's nothing. He's going to have to come up with a better cover story for that, and fast.

"Anything that has you speechless has me concerned," he says, just to break what was threatening to become an awkward silence.

"You're gonna be fine."

Meaningless platitudes. Awesome. He lets his mouth continue without him, letting his mind focus on concocting more and more elaborate explanations for the close call with Teyla that don't land him in a room with padded walls, if they even have any of those on Atlantis. Maybe it was something about the sticks! Smacking sticks together makes the creature inside him horny. Only no, because that sounds like a weird way to come out as gay, which really doesn't fit the Teyla thing. Phase of the moon, time of day, alignment of Mercury, except there is no Mercury in this galaxy. That he knows of! But no, that would be a dumb excuse even on Earth.

Teyla has Wraith DNA! Just a little bit, but then, he's not really a Wraith, either. It's at least a little bit plausible. Like calls to like, and all that. She's the person most like him right now, DNA-wise, probably. And it's not like anyone can disprove the DNA theory, because nobody knows how Wraith really work. So it just might fly.

"We're gonna beat this," Weir is saying, and John represses the urge to roll his eyes. Time to end this conversation and go to bed. His own bed, thanks.

"We're gonna beat this? Beckett will figure this out? You're gonna be fine? You really suck at the whole bedside manner thing." It's probably a little bit over the top, considering the otherwise sincere and somewhat personal conversation up until now, but it works.

"I know. I'm sorry."

She looks embarrassed, and she really was only trying to help. John sighs internally and offers another little piece of truth. "I appreciate the effort. I'm just tired."

"Sure. You can ... yeah, you can go to your quarters. Just let me know if you decide to roam the city, okay? Because you can. I just want to make sure ... Carson should know where you are, just in case."

"No problem." He hops off the exam table, pauses in the infirmary doorway. "You may as well go ahead and give Lorne or someone my duties now. Since we don't know how long I'll really be sane. So I can't try to trick you into letting me make stupid decisions with other people's lives."

She nods unhappily, and he leaves.

* * *

He dreams his way into a few other realities in the night, which he would write off to actual dreams or stress or even that the inhibitor doesn't help when he's asleep, except he's brushing his teeth when it happens again. McKay's sprawled on the floor, complaining loudly, and John's sitting in his desk chair with feet up on the desk.

"All I did was suggest that none of them had a scientific mind and should leave the thinking to those of us who do! I never said I had the medical knowledge - because frankly, I don't and never want to learn it - so really I was just proposing a, a, a sort of teamwork situation, which you'd think they'd go for! I mean, they were already working as a dysfunctional team. They should have thanked me for offering to help them."

"I can't imagine why they didn't," John says, and he's honestly not sure if he's the one who said it or if he's just riding shotgun.

"I know!" McKay hesitates, then looks up at him. "Are you mocking me?"

He drops the innocent look pretty quickly. "Yeah, a little."

McKay glares. "You're an asshole."

John can't help it; he laughs so hard his feet fall off the desk. "I suppose I should thank you for pointing that out?"

"I've got some ideas on how that thanks could be shown, yeah," McKay shoots back with a frankly lecherous leer, and John shakes his head.

"Back to the scientific mind thing--"

McKay sighs loudly. "Okay, fine. I've left the medical staff alone to think about their voodoo. Carson promised to tell me what they work out so I can check their work, or, or, so I can help them do it, actually." He looks up at John almost hesitantly. "I thought maybe you'd be lonely in here without anyone but your guard to keep you company."

A guard! That's actually a really good idea. As soon as he's back in his own body, he's going to make that happen. Just in case. "I'm sure everybody prefers this arrangement."

"You're welcome," McKay tells him, but it's not sarcastic or pushy, just ... genuine. And accompanied by the press of a hand briefly to his ankle. "I brought some Star Trek, if you want."

If his McKay has been holding back Star Trek, they are going to have some serious words. He tosses his feet back up on the desk and grins. "You are my favorite person in all the realities," he replies, just as the world fuzzes briefly into dreaminess and he finds himself alone in his bathroom again. On the plus side, his teeth are brushed already, so he steps back into his bedroom and calls Lorne over the radio. Time to implement a guarding system.

He sticks his head out of his room when he hears a knock. "Captain," he greets the armed guard. "Sorry to interrupt your morning."

"Not a problem, sir," the kid replies, and he stands at attention beside the door, looking somewhere over John's left shoulder. "Major Lorne informed me that you requested the guard?"

"Don't worry about me trying to ditch you. Yet." He thinks for a minute, then nods sharply. "If Doctor McKay comes by this morning, let him in. I also plan to visit Dr Weir, but not until later."

"Yes, sir."

John frowns at the young Marine, but he decides that discretion is the better part of not making people throw up. "Knock when there's a shift change," he says, then slides his blue head back into the room without forcing the kid to actually look at him. And that'll take some getting used to, but it's barely even visible above his collar. Still, for someone who hadn't seen him before....

"You saved my life, sir," Ford's saying, and John blinks really hard to focus on whatever new reality this is. Then he blinks really hard again, because it's _Aiden Ford_.

"I did? When?" He frowns at the sound of his own voice, and then the feel of this body catches up with him. "Oh fuck. Then. Right."

"Are you okay, Colonel?"

Apparently he's somewhere in the realm of ninety, which is at least different than being blue. He coughs experimentally - for at least a full minute, until there's blood in his hand. This is, so far, the worst reality he's been in, even considering the perk of seeing Ford alive and well. "Sure. Fine."

"You're a shitty liar, sir," Ford replies, and John can't help but smile.

"Good to see you're okay, kid."

"Yes, sir. I'll let you rest--"

"Stay." John's pretty sure that the actual old-John will want to talk to Ford, so he closes his eyes and tries to wish his way back into his old body. (He admits to himself that he also really wants to get back into his relatively-healthy body, because this one really sucks. But he's pretty sure that, if someone ever asked, he'd only cop to helping his old counterpart.)

It takes some time, but eventually he opens his eyes at a loud, demanding knock on the door. The door bursts open almost immediately, and he smiles at the guard's apologetic look before turning to his visitor. "Come on in, McKay."

"They're all idiots."

"I'm doing fine, thanks for asking."

"One of them even brought little plastic DNA models! I swear, it looked like tinker toys. It was like being surrounded by toddlers in lab coats. Except their lab coats sort of fit. And I only mean sort of. I'm pretty sure that skinny girl and the fat guy swapped on the way in just to prove their incompetence."

John snorts at this despite his best efforts, and McKay looks pleased as he sits on the edge of the bed. "I doubt that would be the reasoning for any swap."

"Yes, well. That was all it accomplished for me. Then again, voodoo department gathering, so maybe I shouldn't have been looking for scientific accuracy."

"Tinker toys?"

McKay nods slowly and seriously. "It was an affront to the small sliver of medicine that actually counts as science."

"Safe to assume you were kicked out, then?"

McKay huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. "I left in a fully dignified manner of my own free will."

John rolls his eyes and joins McKay on the bed, carefully turning so the bit of visible blue is aimed away from the other man. "Did you at least get Beckett to tell you what happened after you were kicked out?"

"Some sort of gene therapy. Biro is doing the theory for the genetic programming - which shouldn't even be called programming; DNA is nothing like a computer - while Carson figures out the details of the mission."

And to think, he'd been skeptical of the necessity of a geneticist or three on Atlantis. "What mission would that be?"

McKay shrugs, looking somewhere between helplessly lost and angrily frustrated. "He wouldn't tell me. Not until he gets the go-ahead."

"Keep me in the loop." He's satisfied by the nod he gets in return, but it reminds him-- "Do you, by any chance, have Star Trek episodes with you?"

"I am going to _kill_ Radek Zelenka. That man has no respect for someone's private files."

John smirks and lets the blame fall where it will. Better than admitting to falling into alternate universes. Although ... he makes a mental note to get something for Zelenka on the next Daedalus run to make up for McKay's imminent wrath.

"Share the Trek, and I'll let your withholding slide this time. Though I would recommend sharing anything else good, too."

He shows McKay out after extracting a promise for the passwords to his super-secret Star Trek folders on the Ancient database, then drops back onto his bed with the vague thought of poking through _War and Peace_ a little bit more.

"It's called dimensional bleed. Or, that's what I'm going to call it, starting right now, because it makes more sense than anything you'll come up with, even if the whole city goes with your nonsense words more often than my useful terms."

John blinks at the fact that someone's talking to him, then registers that he's naked. He's actually not sure if it's more important to address the lack of clothing or the idea he's sure was buried in that rant, but McKay doesn't seem concerned about his - their! - nudity. "Dimensional bleed?"

"Don't tell me you already have a moronic name."

"No, just ... what exactly is dimensional bleed?"

Naked McKay rolls his eyes so hard John worries for a moment about a sprain. "Alternate dimensions bleeding their reality into your brain via half-fucked Wraith kiss?"

John gapes then. "How do you know about that?"

"You told me?" Naked McKay narrows his eyes. "You're not my John, are you."

"Not if this whole naked thing is a regular occurrence, no." He manfully ignores the leer directed down his body - other-John's body - and tries to think for a second. "Your John is also having the ... dimensional bleed? That sounds like a terrible medical condition. Reality hops are better."

"Yes, he's also experiencing the _dimensional bleeds_ ," Naked McKay says, glaring. "Of all the things to be a universal Sheppard trait."

"Can you stop them?"

The eyes roll again, and John just barely resists rolling his own in response. "Hello, genius here. Of course I can. Though I should point out that I only heard about them _two minutes ago_ , so it'll take more time than you'll be here. Get your own Rodney to fix you. If he's anything like me, which I have to assume he is, it shouldn't take long."

"Yeah, because I'm going to tell him."

"Get him naked first. Everything is easier to hear naked."

John stares at him in confusion. He cannot think of a single thing that would be easier to hear naked, though plenty of things are significantly worse when clothes aren't involved. "We don't do the whole naked thing."

"I don't know whether to feel sorrier for you or your Rodney." Naked Rodney grins, or maybe it's more of a leer. "Besides, unless you magically reconnect to us between me figuring it out and my John fixing it, your only hope is him. And lots of sex."

He's getting fuzzy again, but he focuses on Rodney with determination. "Just in case you're not naked next time, your code word so I know it's you is _conehead_." He can see a look of indignation before the bedroom grays back into his own, and he leans back on his bed, claw flung over his face, entertaining himself with thoughts of the conversation Naked John has just returned to. It's an easier prospect than considering the _lots of sex_  Naked Rodney had mentioned. He's pretty sure his own McKay is still seeing that botanist, anyway.

His next few reality hops are relatively boring. He helps another self urinate once, fights with Wraith on other planets twice, and is tied to an infirmary bed once. None of those realities show the slightest hint that anyone's aware a different John temporarily inhabited their own John's body, but he's pretty sure that if anyone knows, the Johns wouldn't be offworld. The bathroom visit didn't tell him anything, because he's still allowed to do that without supervision in his own reality (though the lack of blue claws was a nice change), and he refuses to believe that being tied down is related to the reality hops. Still, he's not about to share his hallucinations, even if he does pretty much believe they're real. He doesn't have _that_  much faith in Carson Beckett.

* * *

He clenches his teeth and fights down the urge to punch Weir in the face. He's close to another dose of the inhibitor; he can hold out until Beckett calls for him. "I don't know how much time I have," he explains as slowly and clearly as he can, "but the last thing I want to do is sit on my--" _stupid blue ass_ "--mutating hands, while my team puts their lives on the line trying to find me a cure." And he's pretty sure it's not just wishful thinking that says he's having fewer reality hops when he's active. Surely he'd be fine on a mission, focusing on watching his teammates' backs. "I should be with them!"

"No. I'm sorry."

She does _not_ sound sorry. "What's the worst that can happen? I die?" If this mission fails, that's really the _best_ that can happen, and he _knows_ she knows it.

"You could compromise the mission. They have enough things to worry about--"

"No. No. So, what, suddenly I'm a liability?"

Weir's face is unchanging, and he hates her for it as he feels his frustration twist at his own features. "Your condition can change rapidly."

"I know!" He knows better than she does, really. "I know I can do this." Even the other Johns who have turned on the team have only tried to eat them because of stupid Wraith physiology, and that wouldn't work with his body. They'd be fine even if someone else hopped into his body mid-mission.

"I'm glad you feel that way, but it would be irresponsible of me to-"

"This is my life we're talking about," he interrupts as calmly and firmly as he can.

"I know that."

He thinks she's starting to waver, so he holds her gaze for a long moment before stating the new fact. "I'm going on that mission."

Her face changes so fast John thinks he might get whiplash. "No, John! You're not."

"Dammit!" The bug part of him curls his blue half-claw into a fist, and he turns away from Weir to smash it into the nearest hard, non-human surface instead. Glass shatters against his scaly skin and crashes to the ground, and he fights down the immediate urge to take out his guard. The man is _supposed_ to have a weapon drawn on him, after a display like that. But Weir's rushing into the situation as he straightens and drops his blue fist.

"It's okay! Put it down."

The Marine lowers his gun slowly, and John makes a mental note to remind his men that if they think a situation is unsafe, Elizabeth Weir can't tell them otherwise. But she's right; he's okay now. The bug seems to be happy with the sound of breaking glass. "I'm betting that didn't sell you."

"No, not really."

He nods slowly, the glances down at his hand. He can't feel any pain in it, and he doesn't think it was injured at all, but if she takes it as an excuse-- "I should get back to the infirmary."

"Yes."

He doesn't even bother to ask about the mission as he turns to leave. The Marine leaves a hand on his gun the whole way down to the infirmary, and he makes another mental note to commend the man for it. Once he's un-blue and doesn't find it quite so weird to thank someone for being prepared to shoot him. The man seems to relax on their way back to John's room after another dose of inhibitors, but that might also be related to John's own relaxation, now that he doesn't have to fight the bug in him quite so hard.

Still, when he's not fighting, life is actually a little bit boring. He's given up on reading because the claw-hands aren't particularly good at turning pages, so much of his time is spent staring pointlessly at the walls or ceiling. He wonders what happens when someone else comes into his body - and if someone always does, or if it just sits around empty while he's gone. Naked John was probably in it, but other than that, he's not sure if he's actually swapping bodies or just riding shotgun for a minute. If he thought anybody else would work out how to write with the claws, he'd leave a note asking for an answer, but even he has trouble forming letters. He's wondering about the likelihood of revisiting the naked reality when he feels the room start to fade.

He's naked again, but that's definitely not any McKay under him. "Hi."

Teyla reaches up and runs a hand through his hair. "Hi, yourself." They're quiet for a moment, then she smiles encouragingly and tilts her hips up against his. He shudders. "I'm not going to break, John."

He removes his eyes from her face, though every part of him is waiting to be bruised as he glances down her body. "Yeah," he replies intelligently, staring at his ... other-John's ... _the_  cock pressed up against her. "Um, so this is awkward."

She squeezes his shoulder, and he rips his eyes back up to meet her gaze even as he pulls away. "Sorry. Just. I'm not your John, so. I mean. He'll be back--"

"Have you been here before?"

He stares at her. "What?"

"Are you the John ... mustard dog?"

He can't keep himself from laughing. "No, I'm not. Anyway, if you just want to wait until your John gets back before--"

"I would prefer to continue now."

His eyes are huge; he can feel them. They're pretty much bugging out of his head, which is a nice change from his head bugging out on him in his own universe. "Am I sleeping with a teammate in every other reality?"

Teyla smiles gently at him. "In most of them, you are with Rodney or myself. In some, you are with all four of us."

"Four?"

Her smile fades a little bit. "Is your Aiden also missing?"

"Ford's still with you?" He considers feeling guilty about redirecting her away from sex, but he's only seen Ford in one of the realities he's visited. It might be interesting to find out how often he's gone. All he gets is a nod in reply before he's fading back into his own reality, where he finds the answer to his previous question scrawled almost illegibly across one wall in blue Sharpie.  _HI. CLAWS SUCK._

It seems he can add "stating the obvious" to his mental list of universal John Sheppard traits. He rolls his eyes at himself - himselves? - even as he pushes to his feet at a knock on the door.

"Yeah?" he calls as he opens the door, wishing he hadn't given up his radio so easily in the infirmary.

"Dr Weir wanted me to inform you that your team, Dr Beckett, and a few other volunteers have left on their mission."

John resists his entirely human urge to punch another wall. "Did she happen to mention how many and who those 'few other volunteers' are?"

"No, sir. Would you like me to ask her?"

He wants to know, and the Marine's hand is hovering next to his radio, but it's ridiculous to make someone act as go-between like he and Weir are divorced parents. "That's okay, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir."

John waits to see if the man has anything else to say, but after a suitably awkward silence, he triggers the door shut again. It's back to his busy life of contemplation and reality-hops. And contemplation about reality-hops, because now that he thinks about it, why don't the inhibitors stop those?

But there's no time to properly consider the question, because he's proving once again that, regardless of the reason, the inhibitors clearly don't stop the jumps. He's on Earth now, in the SGC, sitting at a table staring up at a panel of generals and civilians that may as well as be generals, as far as the Stargate program is concerned.

"We have no choice," O'Neill is saying, and John nods reflexively. "You'll be discharged from the Air Force, though you cannot be allowed to move around on Earth on your own."

John considers momentarily telling them that they really should have a recess until their own John gets back, because this not news you want to hear from somebody who thinks you already know, but he glances down at the papers spread in front of him at that moment. He sees his name at the top of the paper - and hey, he's a full-bird colonel here - but the pictures are what grab his attention. The quality is far too good for such gruesome murder scenes. It takes him a long moment to recognize the mutilated bodies as pretty much the entire population of Atlantis.

"The nature of their deaths cannot be disclosed, of course, which is a factor in your trial. Considering that no other facility on Earth could be told the truth of your charges, and considering that the SGC is neither equipped for prison terms nor permitted to issue the death penalty--"

John tunes back in quickly when Woolsey says those two words. _He_ murdered his friends? He pushes down the rising nausea.

"And considering the nature of your ongoing condition--" Probably the reality hops, which the idiots don't even realize _he's experiencing right now_.

General O'Neill jumps in again. "Sheppard, your request to retire to New Athos has been approved. Halling has been made aware of your inability to stay in your own head, and his people are willing to take you in despite the risk to them."

John nods again, then shakes his head. "General, I'm not your Sheppard. I came in around the news about the discharge."

O'Neill throws the pen in his hands down on the table. "Goddammit, you mean I have to go through that whole speech again?"

"Sorry, sir. While I'm here...."

The general sighs. "Turned into a half-bug beast, killed half of Atlantis, ate most of his kills, was finally captured when he cocooned in his rooms, was administered experimental retrovirus while under guard of literally every military man left alive, didn't remember a thing when he changed back into a human."

John feels the blood leave his face and sways in his chair. "I'm turning into that half-bug beast," he says quietly, and everyone except O'Neill tenses.

"I recommend you order your own death," the general says calmly.

"Beckett's working on a retrovirus. If it worked in this universe--"

"You killed him before he could administer it." O'Neill seems to be studying him before finally adding, "With a big enough security detail, it could work."

"With orders to kill," one of the civilians adds, and John nods.

"Thanks."

O'Neill is silent for a long moment, then he nods. "Forewarned might be forearmed. If you deliver that warning."

The fuzziness of the transition isn't long at all this time, and before he can so much as wave at the panel, he's back in his quarters, where the lights are blessedly still off despite Elizabeth Weir standing there talking to him.

"How are you?"

He rolls his eyes at her inane questions. "My body's mutating into a bug," he replies in his most pleasant voice. "How are you?"

Weir wisely doesn't continue the society-visit charade. "Would you like an update on your team's progress?" She's coming closer to him, and he calculates lighting and angles and probable outcomes faster than he ever has before. He turns his head away from her as she stops beside him. Close enough to reach out and kill her, he thinks, and he fights off the thought and the nausea at the same time.

"They found an Iratus cave, and they've headed in."

"Good."

"They should locate some eggs and be back here in no time."

He shuts his eyes but opens them again almost immediately, worried that she'll move when he isn't paying attention. "No time?"

"Yes."

Ignoring the part where it took them at least an hour to hike from the gate to the cave in the first place. "Then what?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

_Then I mutate too far and kill everybody I care about,_ he thinks to himself. _Then your lives are literally over, and mine is figuratively over, even if this universe's O'Neill lets me live with the Athosians. Even if this universe's Halling lets me join them after killing Teyla._

"Are you alright?"

He feels his claw flex and focuses on relaxing it, on soothing the angry bug. He's not alright, and frankly, he's not sure he ever will be again. Even if he were cured now, seeing what he would do to his friends, his team, given half the chance--

"Would you like me to call someone?"

"Who would you call?" The only people who understand him also _are_ him, and he hasn't really gotten a chance to talk to any of his own alternates. He thinks maybe Naked Rodney is his only actual option in any of this.

"If you need to see a doctor--"

He chokes back a laugh that’s threatening to turn hysterical before it even gets out of his mouth. "I need a bigger security detail."

"Excuse me?"

She's closer. She's close enough to touch him, but he's betting she won't. Not yet. He might be betting her life on that. "At least two men stationed at my door, sooner rather than later." He can tell them not to let anyone in without guns trained on him, he can tell them that lethal force is authorized. They won't argue with him, but she will.

"What are you talking about?"

_Marines,_ he thinks with more sarcasm than even McKay is capable of putting into one word. "Just trust me, Elizabeth," he says instead. "You're going to need it."

"Listen, John--"

He doesn't consciously see her hand moving towards him, but the hunger for human meat rises sharply within his bug half. He whips his head around to face her, and it startles her hand straight back to her side with a whispered curse.

"They need to hurry," he bites out.

"You should be in the infirmary."

His anger at her willful ignorance mixes with the bug's desires, and they both fight against his self-restraint to just smack her across the face. "The infirmary isn't secure. The inhibitor's only keeping _me_ lucid. It's not slowing the retrovirus." It's not making the other creature in his head any weaker.

"Still--"

"DON'T ARGUE WITH ME!" He pulls back when he realizes how close he suddenly is to her face, and he feels a weird urge to lick his lips that he thinks is coming from the bug. They're hungry, and it thinks there's food right in front of them. "I'm not safe to be around anymore. Get some more men at my door and get the hell out of here."

She gives in, and he digs nails into palm and claws into thigh as she orders the single guard to double the detail. He tries to call out to them, to say there should be more than two guards, but the bug seems to be gaining ground. He can't focus on the words long enough to say them. The door closes as they sit back on the bed.

* * *

The bug-monster part of him seems to prefer hanging from the ceiling, and he's given up fighting on that point to concentrate on things like not murdering and eating people just for fun. The inhibitors ... well, Beckett says they're still helping, but if that's true, John would hate to see himself without them.

He hates to see himself this way, anyway.

The door opens, but nobody tries to turn on the lights, so he just scuttles away from what little is filtering in from the dimmed hallway - it must be nighttime, part of him thinks, and the bug-monster rejoices in an unsettling manner. He pushes it down, away, back, and turns his attention back to his visitor.

"Our team got back from the mission."

The monster is just as interested in this news as John is, so they drop onto the floor without a fight about it. Weir jerks around and gasps. He knows he's really starting to look as horrible outside as he is in, but that's really not important now. Thankfully, she gets back on topic instead of commenting on it.

"The nest was too well protected. We were unable to retrieve the eggs. They tried their best...."

The bug-monster is gleeful, but John is despairing. "Best?" he asks, for both of them.

"The bugs attacked--"

"Try again." The bug-monster in him wants everyone on the mission to be eaten, but John's pretty sure they're better than that.

"Can't do that."

"Why?" The bug is pretty confident in its kin's ability to eat all humans.

"John...."

"No." He means no, don't do the mission again, not if his monster self wants it so badly, but her face makes it clear she doesn't see it that way.

"I understand--"

She doesn't understand anything. "If you won't, then kill me now." And he actually really hopes she does, even though he knows she isn't armed. Stupid, stupid mistake, to come into a room with a psychopathic half-bug without even so much as a Wraith stunner. Stupid Marines to let her override his own orders on the subject.

"John."

He wonders if she knows the difference between the bug-monster using him to talk to her and him talking to her. "It's better for both of us," he bites out. Kill him before he can watch the bug take more control, kill the bug before it loses the power of even second-hand speech.

"I can't do that." The stupid bitch thinks they're talking about her. Like killing them would be better for her. John pushes hard against the bug with that thought, because it _would_ be better for her, it would be so much better for her and everyone else on Atlantis!

"Then try again," he forces out. Those are the only options she is allowed to consider, and she's about to lose the window for having options. Hell, she's about to lose the window for getting out of their room alive--

They lunge forward and pin her to the wall with just the monster's hand around her throat. John screams, but it doesn't make it out of their mouth, and the monster tightens their grip on her.

"We lost Walker and Stevens." John reels in their head at the names of their first two guards. Walker was horrified by them before they were even blue above the collar, and Stevens had shaken his head a lot at what he called the injustice of the universe, having such a good man turn bug on them. "I won't send another team!" He knows, _knows_ , that there are more volunteers asking to go, and he screams again as Weir gasps for breath. "I won't risk more lives!"

They stare at her, John throwing every bit of control he has left over their body into not killing her. He can feel the bug-monster fighting back against him, wanting her blood, struggling for her death, and then everything starts to get foggy. He pounds the monster with every last bit of him, and he feels it release her and push her away as he falls away from his own reality. _Don't kill her, don't kill her, don't kill anyone!_ he shouts at the bug-monster, but the sudden lack of fight tells him he's not shouting at it anymore.

"Wasn't planning to kill anybody today," the other person in the head answers aloud.

"Hmm?"

John feels the head he's in look up at a half-naked McKay. _Conehead?_ he tries to ask, but the head he's in ignores him.

"I have a visitor. Definitely not someone who's been cured; I can feel the fear of the Beast in him."

_Conehead?_

"But he's not a Beast, is he?"

_CONEHEAD?_

John's head shakes. "Nah, he must be on blockers. He is, however, extremely insistent about the word 'conehead'. One of yours?"

McKay finally glances over at him - at them? - and grins. "Stupid asshole who barged in right after sex and proceeded to very obviously freak out about the nudity thing. Let him up."

John suddenly feels some sort of pressure leave him, and he experimentally wiggles his mouth around. "Oh. Good. Hello. Hi."

"Eloquent as ever," McKay answers. "Did you ever tell your Rodney?"

The head shakes as he replies, "Nope. Still blue and scaly, too, so maybe I should reconsider that."

"You really should," his mouth replies, and he swears loudly in response. "Sorry."

"This conversation is going to be really hard to follow if you keep doing that, Johns."

John shrugs. "It's not like I know how to control it."

John's mouth laughs at him.

"Seriously, that's irritating. Can you stop? I'm trying to figure out how not to eat everybody I know, here."

He can feel their mouth open to reply again, but something in their expression must give it away to McKay, because he sets a hand lightly on their knee. "Did you come here on purpose?"

"Uh. I'm not sure. I don't think so. I mean, I've been wanting to see you again - and by see you, I mean talk to you; I'm really glad you're wearing pants this time - but I don't think I managed anything on purpose. I'm not exactly what you'd call ... sane, anymore."

"As evidenced by you talking like Rodney," other-John replies through their mouth.

"John, leave him alone. Time could be limited."

They shrug at the same time, which somehow manages to feel weirder than fighting about it.

"Visitor John, have you meditated since the last time you were here?"

He gapes. "I never meditate. Should I be meditating?"

Their eyes roll, and so do Rodney's. "That would be why I told you to start meditating."

"You told me to start meditating?"

"That's how I controlled my reality hops," their mouth tells him, then it smirks. "Thanks for that term, by the way. Perfect."

"Any time," he replies automatically. "So. Meditation. Harder than it sounds even with a fully human brain."

"Seriously, Rodney, you should feel this mind," their mouth interjects. "It's bad. Something must be wrong with his Carson, because he is way past my return to normal. The blockers are keeping him nonviolent, but there's pretty much no order to the thoughts back here."

"You can hear my thoughts?" he replies, as Rodney asks, "You can hear his thoughts?"

"Complete chaos."

John frowns as hard as he can, just because it's funny to feel other-John try not to. "Of course it's not the most ordered thing in the world. I'm focusing on this conversation, not the back of my mind. Get out of there."

"Can't help it," other John says. "You'd be able to feel mine if you weren't busy going crazy."

Rodney snorts. "The amount of gay sex in them, you should probably be grateful. If you're actually straight and not just intimidated by my awesomeness, that is."

"Neither," other John informs them, and John actually slaps their cheek to try to make it stop.

"So, if you're cured...."

There's a long silence, then other-John nods their head. "Yeah, the meditation."

"What?"

Their eyes roll. "Are you paying attention to your own thoughts? I'm not turning into the Beast anymore, but since I'd already learned how to control the reality hops, I'm apparently still an open portal. But I'm not forced to trade places, and I'm not about to go around jumping into unknown Johns. What if they're as bad off as you are?"

"Then my body--"

"Go," Rodney says suddenly. "Shit, shit, get back in it right now."

"I can't! I mean, how?"

He feels it like a hard push to the top of his head, and then he's facing down Teyla on a set of stairs that are definitely _not_ in his quarters.

"Please, do _not_ make me do this," she's saying, and he throws his mental weight at the instincts controlling his body. When she shoots at his feet, it only makes the Beast angrier, but her rapid fire and his sudden fear-relief that she's actually going to kill him convinces the Beast to run. He feels the blaster shots hit his back and thinks _thank God for Ronon_ before everything goes black.

* * *

His eyes shoot open as soon as he realizes that he's alive and in control of his body. The story of the John who bugged out and killed everyone flashes through his mind, and he feels his heart squeeze way too tight. He's in the infirmary, he doesn't see anyone but a couple of nurses who all look terrified, and he can't hear the bug. He's become that John despite the warnings--

"John? John." He jerks his head the side and nearly passes out with relief when he sees Weir and Beckett. Two people he didn't kill, at least. "Hey. You're in the infirmary."

"Sorry about the headache," Beckett interjects as John opens his mouth. "It's a side effect of the inhibitor."

"Did I hurt anyone?" John rushes the words out of his mouth and then cringes internally as they exchange meaningful looks.

Weir looks down at him. "No, not seriously."

He's not reassured by that. His blackout can only be the bug taking control, or-- "Did Ronon shoot me?"

"You had it coming!" He shudders at the confirmation, beyond glad that he was shot. "Look, we don't have a lot of time. This dose of the inhibitor drug will only last about an hour. How would you like to go on a mission?"

"I should probably meditate," he replies, then shakes his head hard. Apparently the worry was the only thing keeping his thoughts relevant. "Yes. Tell me."

His limbs are unstrapped from the bed and shoved into a completely weapons-free uniform as she briefs him on the mission. He nods as they walk up towards the gateroom, absorbing the information as well as he can through the disorder in his head as he shrinks back into his cloak. The light hurts more than the horrified glances.

"Beckett will bring the eggs back here--" A sharp spike of anger flies through him, and he stops dead in his tracks. The bug is still there, still in him.

"Enough," he says shortly when she looks around at him. "We don't like baby pie. One thing at a time. Nest."

She frowns even as she nods, and as they take the last few steps into the gateroom, she turns towards the group waiting for them. "He's ready."

John focuses completely on getting to the nest, because it seems to be the only thing the bug will agree with him about. He forgets about the humans with them, forgets about what happens when they get to the nest, forgets about their eventual un-transformation. They walk, steadily, one foot in front of the other, claws periodically dipping into branches just to feel the forest. They smell the air, frustrated at the lack of scent differentiation they instinctually know they should have. They stop outside of the cave that smells like home.

"Yunk tha akdi aldhrd thaed." The sounds are foreign to them, and John pushes his way to the surface, alone, to understand when Beckett tries again. "At least a container full, do you understand?"

Meaning still takes a long moment to filter through, but he takes the tools, and they walk toward the cave. _We can join our kind now,_ he tells his bug self.

{{We should eat these first,}} the bug says, and they hesitate in front of one of the humans, who makes noises at them.

_We should save them as a gift for our brethren._

{{We should at least remove these artificial shells. They reek of human.}}

_They will tell the others that our gift is real._

They push past the human and enter the cave. It is still a long scuttle from the entrance to the home, and this body does not scuttle as quickly as it should. They are missing legs, but their brethren should forgive that when given the human feast outside.

{{We are home,}} the bug tells him gleefully, and John pushes his own identity and feelings aside and lets human and bug halves meld together more fully than ever before.

_We are,_ they agree. _We should properly greet our brethren._

They shed the cloak and focus on producing the pheromones that indicate a food supply. When the others in the cave are scenting them for details, they pull out a flare and toss it into the cavern.

{{We cannot injure our kind!}} they admonish.

_We have to show them the dangers their food will try to use,_ they argue. They move towards the flare to be certain nobody is injured, but an egg sac above their head catches their attention. They pull out another human device and show it to the others while they look at the eggs, then put part of the device back into their artificial shell. _We should check for our own offspring._

{{We should not expose them to human things. It might damage them, this young.}}

_We will be very careful,_ they promise themself, and they jump up the eggs.

{{We do not sense any of them being our own,}} they say to themself, disappointed.

_Our body is slow to sense,_ they remind themself. _We will wait to be sure._

They're sure they need to be here, on the eggs, but they can't remember why. The need is strong. Stronger than anything else, stronger even than the need to tell their brethren about the food outside--

"Baby pie!" their mouth shouts, and they react instantly. Half of them tries to leap away and scent a warning to the others in the cavern, but the other half thrusts the human device deep into the egg sac.

{{We cannot take the eggs!}} they yell at themself, and themself shakes their head hard.

_We have to!_

{{We will not take the eggs!}} They fight desperately over their hand, and its grasp slowly starts to loosen.

"Oh, goddammit!" their mouth says, and a third self joins the fight, clenching the hand tightly around the human device. "Come on, John!"

They wrench the human device back out of the egg sac and drop to the floor. The bug self screams at the sight of the container full of eggs, but the two Johns pull the lid out of their jacket.

"I can't stay much longer," their mouth grunts. "You have to fight this one alone, John."

_I can't!_

"You can! You have to!" The lid clicks into place, and the other John disappears as suddenly from their head as he had arrived.

{{BABY-EATING THIEF!}} the bug part yells, and they fall over as they fight for control of the body. Their pheromones take on a distinct combination of guilt and condemnation, and both selves freeze as the Iratus bugs react to the admission.

_They'll kill you, too!_ John yells as he drags their body upright and forces it, stumbling, towards the mouth of the cavern.

The bug self has no reply, but it stops fighting against him, and they gain speed, sprinting through the cave and out into the sunlight.

_Stop! Beckett and--_

{{I will have this body!}} it rages suddenly, not allowing the body to slow as they charge into the largest human and through the group gathered at the cave entrance.

_No, you--_ They hear the sound of blaster fire, and John once again thanks a deity he doesn't believe in for Ronon Dex.

* * *

* * *

**Epilogue**

Sheppard isn't answering his radio again. Rodney huffs and slaps a hand against the door controls of the man's quarters, not even bothering with knocking. He's tired of Sheppard going off-radio every other night at the same time. It wouldn't even be as annoying if it didn't have a schedule to it, but there's no way he takes a two-hour shower every other day. Which means that maybe he's about to walk into some kind of sexual appointment, but at this point, he doesn't even care. He needs to know what this Ancient device does.

"No, seriously, this is gross. Carson said it would go away on its own. Well, Rodney made me a salve. I'll bring you the recipe next time. Really? Did it work? Would I offer it to you if it didn't? You might."

"What the hell are you doing?" Rodney interrupts, staring at the Sheppard sprawled across his bed.

Sheppard lifts his head. "Hey, McKay. Ever hear of knocking?"

"Hey, Sheppard," Rodney parrots back. "Ever hear of answering your radio?"

One eyebrow raises. "No, you're still the bad guy in this scenario. The cute bad guy! Oh, shut up, you bastard, I told you it's not like that with us. Maybe it should be."

"Are you talking to yourself about having sex with me?"

Sheppard turns red fast. "Yes and no. More yes than no. More no than yes! What's no about it at all?"

"Okay, yeah, I'm just going to call Carson."

The other man shoots up off the bed faster than Rodney's ever seen him move. "Hey, no need to do that. I'll scoot on back to my own body. You idiot, he doesn't know anything. I'll see you at the regular time!" There's a long silence, in which Rodney's hand hovers next to the radio on his ear but doesn't actually activate it. "Stupid bastard stranded me. Can you believe that?"

Rodney hesitates before replying. "Are you talking to me this time?"

"Yeah. He's gone."

"You sound a little bit crazy. And the last time you sounded crazy--"

Sheppard sighs and sits down again, patting the bed beside him. Rodney very firmly does not move from his position just inside the door, though he drops his hand. "The last time I sounded crazy, I actually was, and John saved all of our lives by butting into my head."

"Oh my God, Sheppard, please tell me you didn't name the voice inside your head after yourself."

Sheppard stares at him for a long moment before laughing. It's one of his awful, unrestrained, donkey-bray laughs, and it goes on so long Rodney reaches for his radio again. "No, okay, no, I'm fine, and I didn't. Naked John's not ... he's from another reality or alternate universe or whatever, McKay. Not a figment of my imagination."

"Naked John."

Sheppard flushes again. "Long story. Look--" He cuts off, cocks his head to the side, then nods. "Hi, Rodney. Naked John here, though I've got to say I'm not too big a fan of that nickname. My Rodney thought you might need to be convinced about the whole alternate reality thing, so he sent me back here with a message."

"Your Rodney."

"Naked Rodney," Sheppard supplies helpfully, and Rodney wants to hit himself for actually recognizing a difference between his Sheppard and this ... Naked John.

"He wears clothes most of the time, Jesus!" Naked John rolls his eyes - rolls Sheppard's eyes? - and looks back towards Rodney. "Anyway, Not-Usually-Naked Rodney wanted to remind you that when you first saw your John - who, by the way, we call Conehead John--"

Rodney snorts loudly.

"Shut up," Sheppard replies petulantly.

"Sorry, go on."

"The first time you saw Conehead John, you thought about how his ass reminded you of your third grade teacher, Mrs. Ross."

Rodney gapes at Naked John, who smirks back at him.

"I don't know if I should feel flattered or offended," Sheppard mutters finally.

"Flattered," Rodney and Naked John answer at the same time.

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains: nonconsensual sexual acts, nonconsensual control of one's body, dubious consent in a sexual situation, violence, death of major characters, and mention of consensual sex among up to five people. All of these situations are short and/or not in great detail and/or impermanent in the major story. All pairings listed in the header are background mentions and/or only hinted at in the story.
> 
> This story also contains profanity and ableist language and is based on the episode _Conversion_ (season 2, episode 8); some of the dialog is drawn directly from [the transcript at GateWorld](http://www.gateworld.net/atlantis/s2/transcripts/208.shtml). (The transcript also supplied great humor while writing, so there are a few tiny references to notes in it.)


End file.
